GRACULA 



there is no impropriety in the name, because they do 

 not call those swallows martins, to which we give that 

 name, and their martinets in the swallow family are 

 our swifts, not our martins. In Britain, however, the 

 name martin would be very improperly applied to the 

 genus Gracula ; because it would immediately suggest 

 ttie notion of those familiar little birds which build 

 their nuptial bowers with so much industry and inge- 

 nuity in the angles of our windows, whereas the genus 

 which we are now very shortly to notice, are very 

 different both in their appearance and their habits. 



There are perhaps no birds of which the nomen- 

 clature is so confused as those of this genus, as 

 scarcely two of those who have treated of them sys- 

 tematically, have agreed in applying the same name 

 to them. In adopting Gracula, we follow Cuvier ; 

 ut it is doubtful whether his generic characters will 

 :![.')ly to all those birds which the continental writers 

 ine.'ide under the general name of martins. This 

 part of the system is indeed not a little difficult, 

 because the shades of characteristic distinction are 

 very s.null and exceedingly numerous. In Cuvier's 

 arrange -iient, the grackles belong to the dentirostral 

 division of Panscres ; and he arranges them near the 

 choughs. They are all birds of omnivorous habits, 

 though the principal food of very many of them con- 

 sists of locusts and grasshoppers, in the destruction of 

 the former of which they render important services 

 to those countries in which they are found. The 

 greater number are natives of the grand head quarters 

 of the more splendid birds of omnivorous character; 

 namely, the oriental Archipelago and the Oceanic 

 isles ; but some of them are found in the east and 

 . south-east of Asia, others probably in Africa, and cer- 

 tainly in Madagascar ; and there is at least one 

 species which comes periodically into eastern and 

 central Europe, and in very rare instances makes a 

 dash over into the British isles. 



They resemble various other genera of the same 

 part of die system. They have been classed in part 

 at least with the thrushes, but they less resemble these 

 than they do some others. If we consider them in 

 respect of their food, they come perhaps nearest to 

 the ant-caters ; and if we have reference to their ge- 

 neral habits, they bear no inconsiderable resemblance 

 to the starlings : like these last mentioned birds they 

 are gregarious, appearing in numerous Hocks ; and it 

 is this part of their habit which renders them so valu- 

 able in destroying the countless hosts of the locusts. 



The generic characters are : the bill conical, and 

 much lengthened, without any cere at the base, and 

 with a slight notch at the tip of the upper mandible ; 

 both mandibles very much compressed, with sharp 

 cutting edges, and a little arched , the nostrils oval 

 at th(> base of the bill, and partly covered by a fea- 

 thered membrane ; the feet have four toes, the middle 

 front one shorter than the tarsus, and united to the 

 outer one at the base ; the first quill of the wings 

 merely nidi mental, and the second and third the 

 longest in the wing. 



In their manners they are very familiar birds, little 

 afraid of the immediate presence of human beings, 

 and not much of the discharge of musketry. Indeed 

 they will alight and feed in the fields, in the very 

 middle of the people that are at work there, and 

 pursue their useful labours as if they were fellow- 

 workers with man. Their food is by no means con- 

 lined to locusts, but extends to all the larger species 

 oi insect?, which are so destructive to the produce of 



the fields in the wanner regions of the world. The 

 young are very easily tamed, and readily taugnt to 

 repeat words ; indeed when domesticated and kept in 

 the fain yard, they imitate the cries not only of all 

 the kinds of domestic poultry, but of sheep, goats, and 

 almost of every other animal of which they hear the 

 voice. It is probably in consequence of this fami- 

 liarity in the manners of at least one of the species, 

 that Temminck gave them the generic name of pastor, 

 by which the only one occasionally visiting this 

 country is generally known. The species are nume- 

 rous ; but our limits will admit only of mentioning 

 one or two, which plan we must follow in the case of 

 all the omnivorous birds of the same country which 

 the grackles inhabit. 



COMMON GHACKLE (G. trintis). How this bird 

 came to be called tristis, "the sad," it is not easy to 

 say ; for in truth it is about as lively a bird as any of 

 which we are acquainted. The usual length is about 

 ten inches. The upper part marron brown ; top of 

 the head furnished with long black thread-shaped 

 feathers ; a triangular naked patch behind the eye ; 

 the principal quills black at the points and white at 

 the bases ; the tail-feathers brown, with the outer 

 webs of the lateral ones white toward the extremities ; 

 the throat, neck, and upper part of the breast, deep 

 grey, the rest of the under part dull white ; and the 

 bill and feet yellow. This species is very generally 

 distributed, both through continental India and. 

 through the islands ; and it is as serviceable in de- 

 stroying those insects which attack vegetation above 

 ground in those countries, as the common rook is for 

 destroying the under-ground depredators of our fields ; 

 and where the inhabitants, inattentive to the uses 

 of birds, have been inconsiderate enough to seek to 

 exterminate the grackle, the same consequences have 

 followed as when the same inconsideration in our 

 own country has led to the destruction of the rook. 

 When our rooks have been thus destroyed, the under 

 ground swarms of coleopterous larvae have cut oh" 

 both corn and grass, at half an inch depth below the 

 surface, so that in brief space hundreds of acres were 

 perfectly bare ; and just in the same manner the de- 

 struction of the grackles, and birds of their class, has 

 been almost instantly followed by a desolating flood 

 of locusts, which left behind them no green thing. 



In the islands of Bourbon and Mauritius, these 

 birds are held in the highest estimation. In former 

 times, the produce of the fields was in the progress of 

 being destroyed by locusts, the eggs of which, pre- 

 viously unknown in the island of Bourbon, were intro- 

 duced with some plants from Madagascar, and they 

 bred so rapidly, that the whole island was threatened 

 with desolation. Poivre, the then governor, to whose 

 science and patriotism the island owed so much, 

 learning the great services which these birds per- 

 formed in India, had a number of pairs introduced 

 and distributed over the islands. They bred very- 

 fast, were diligent in their labours ; and in a few years 

 the locusts seemed extirpated. When this took 

 place the gracklcs began to dig and examine the 

 newly sown fields; and the colonists, concluding that 

 they did so for the purpose of eating the seeds, used 

 every means to exterminate them, and soon succeeded. 

 They, however, had reason speedily to repent, for no 

 sooner were the grackles destroyed, than the ravages 

 of the locusts began. Upon this a second importation 

 took place, and in order to prevent a recurrence of 

 their former folly, special laws were enacted for their 



